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Wedding Contracts & Cancellations: COVID-19

Our wedding
was scheduled for April 2020 at The Oaks at Salem. After guidance was released
from the CDC and the Government, we had to cancel. The health and safety of our
family is our top priority, and 80% of our guests were to travel to Raleigh for
the occasion. The Oaks sent us email updates and offered to reschedule, which
was great, but we sent back a date in October we wanted to hold, and it was
booked within the three hours it took us to coordinate with friends and family
on a date.

Since none
of the dates work for us or our family, we had to cancel altogether. We've
asked for a refund (even partial) because we just paid the remaining balance a
few weeks before this outbreak impacted events, and The Oaks will not budge.
The contract does not explicitly state pandemics or government shutdowns, but
includes the "Act of God" clause. Is anyone else out there going
through something similar with wedding contracts? We've had the same response
from other vendors as well.

Re: Wedding Contracts &amp; Cancellations: COVID-19

This is really rough on everyone impacted. Is there any other date that would work? Can you push it out into 2021 or get married and have a 2021 anniversary party? Normally I'm all for "this is the way you do it" but a lot of those etiquette rules apply when you're not in a pandemic. So can you do something that at least allows you to not lose your money?

I am so sorry to hear about what you are going through, this is indeed a crazy time. I myself just got recently engaged and am just starting wedding planning. I can't imagine what it must be like during these times.

My advice is to keep communications open with your vendors. Refunds are always tricky. If no service has been rendered yet and you have already paid in full, I think it is reasonable to ask for some of the money back outside of the deposit. I would take the deposit as a loss as these are usually non-refundable or maybe work with your vendor on how you can use the deposit in the future (such as an equivalent photo session for photographers etc).

I wish you all the best and hopefully we can all get through this with minimal damage